The development of electronic devices with printed circuit boards typically involves many steps known as a design flow. This design flow typically starts with a specification for a new electronic device to be implemented with a printed circuit board. The specification of the electronic device can be transformed into an electronic device design, such as a netlist, for example, by a schematic capture tool. The netlist may be specified in an Electronic Design Interchange Format (EDIF) or the like, which can describe nets or connectivity between various components represented in the electronic device design. The schematic capture tool also can assign a part number to each component represented in the electronic device design and generate a parts list that includes the unique part numbers assigned to the components in the electronic device design.
The design flow may utilize the electronic device design to generate a layout design for the electronic device. This procedure can be implemented in different ways, but typically, through the use of a layout tool, which can utilize the assigned part numbers to place and interconnect the parts into a representation of a printed circuit board. For example, the layout tool implemented in a computing system can present a graphical view of the printed circuit board and allow a designer to utilize the layout tool to place parts from a library onto the printed circuit board in the graphical view. The layout design can be utilized to manufacture the electronic devices implemented with the printed circuit boards.
Practically speaking, during manufacture of the electronic device, the more unique part numbers assigned to the components in the electronic device, the more expensive the electronic device will be to manufacture. For example, the manufacturer may have additional overhead costs for inventory and for the corresponding logistics of receiving and maintaining the inventory. The manufacturer also may scale a number of component feeding machines utilized during the manufacture of the electronic device based on the number of unique part numbers assigned to the components in the electronic device. Also, since many manufacturers set up their manufacturing line(s) for one product and then may reconfigure their line(s) for manufacturing a different product, the more unique part numbers utilized in manufacturing one product can translate into additional manufacturing down time due to reconfiguration of the manufacturing line(s) for the other product.